San Francisco-based Chain is hoping to become the definitive development platform for Bitcoin transactions, and it's drawing major interest and investment from Silicon Alley bigwigs.

While the first genuine attempt to create a mainstream development platform for Bitcoin transactions is happening in Silicon Valley, many of its key backers are marquee names in Silicon Alley.

San Francisco-based Chain, a startup that builds Bitcoin applications, announced Wednesday that it has closed a $9.5 million Series A funding round with participation from major Alley investors like Thrive Capital, Box Group, Kevin Ryan, Barry Silbert and RRE Ventures. Chain’s founder, Adam Ludwin, is a venture partner at RRE.

"This funding will allow us to invest heavily in building the world’s most reliable and robust Bitcoin infrastructure for developers, enterprises and financial institutions," Mr. Ludwin wrote on the company’s blog.

The infrastructure that Mr. Ludwin refers to is the crux of Chain’s business model. Since Bitcoin is essentially a digital—and largely unregulated—currency, all transactions done using it are recorded in a virtual ledger called the Blockchain. As the popularity of Bitcoin has grown, the Blockchain has become somewhat unwieldy for developers looking to build applications on top of it.

According to Mr. Ludwin and his backers, Chain has solved much of that problem by building an interface program that connects applications directly with the essential aspects of the Blockchain. Using that basic development platform, Chain foresees a future where a number of consumer-facing apps can be built for major financial services companies or any other client looking to make transactions in the Bitcoin space.

Mr. Silbert (a Crain’s 2013 40 Under 40) is an especially intriguing participant in Chain’s Series A round. Since founding the very successful illiquid asset marketplace, SecondMarket, Mr. Silbert has become something of a Bitcoin evangelist. He resigned his position as SecondMarket CEO last month to take the helm of the Bitcoin Investment Trust, a group formed to educate investors on the use of Bitcoin.